


write this number down (you can call it anytime)

by pocky_slash



Series: write this number down [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Background Slash, Canon Disabled Character, Darwin is Alive, Getting Back Together, Kid Fic, M/M, Parenthood, Post-Beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Erik upsets his children, they have a habit of running away from home--and straight to Charles' school for cookies and consolation. Charles doesn't mind the visitors, but as they appear more and more frequently, he realizes that sooner or later, he and Erik are going to have to talk about what happened on the beach and what it means for their future and the future of Erik's children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	write this number down (you can call it anytime)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pearl_o](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PEARLO. 
> 
> Two months late. ::cough:: But I love you so much and you're one of my favorite people and best friends and I JUST WANT YOU TO HAVE NICE THINGS and I hope you like this ♥ ♥ ♥ I'm sorry it took so long!
> 
> This story started as one of hundreds of random emails Pearl and I have exchanged with wisps of story ideas: Post-beach Charles is the worst/best stepdad ever, who gives into the whims of the twins both because he hates disappointing the children and he knows it pisses Erik off. We both decided we were going to write it. Mine...took a really long time. And a lot of angst and hand-wringing and revising and tears and frustration. But it's done.
> 
> IT TAKES A VILLAGE, ETC. I know I say that every time, but it's especially true here. Thanks to Pearl, of course, for the initial cheerleading of the first seconds of draft one, **littledust** for help provided along the way, **brilligspoons** for letting me complain about it for literal months and for helping me out of a tough spot near the end, **cygnaut** for two beta sweeps when I was deep in despair, and _especially_ to **kaydee falls** who went through it all and helped me work through multiple problems, both obvious and elusive, and made the story a million times better.
> 
> I've been holding onto this one for a really long time and I'm very relieved to let it go.
> 
> Title from the Dar Williams song "Write This Number Down."

Charles is in his study speaking with Hank when he feels them approach.

"I'm sorry, Hank," he says. "There's something I must attend to. Can we pick this up later, perhaps?"

Hank sighs but nods his acquiescence. If the boys think there's anything peculiar about this habit, they've not said anything yet and Charles appreciates it.

"I'll come by before classes tomorrow," Hank says, and gets up from his place on the opposite side of Charles' desk. He leaves the door open, as Charles isn't far behind him. 

When Charles reaches the kitchen, the children are already sitting at the table.

"You know, you are allowed to use the front door, no matter what your father may tell you," Charles says, but it's a token protest. Wanda is sniffling and there are tears in her eyes. Pietro, as usual, looks surly and defiant and so very much like Erik, even if he imagines Erik was not quite this petulant at Pietro's seven years. "Oh, come here, darling," he says, and Wanda jumps down allows Charles to hug her. It's a little awkward--she's hugging him from the side, leaning up against the wheel of his chair--but he can feel some of the tension dissipate as she sniffles against his shoulder.

"Papa is mean," Wanda says, her voice wobbling.

"He yelled at us!" Pietro says. "It wasn't our fault, it was _Toad's_ fault and he just _yelled_ at us because he's _mean_."

"I'm sorry you're upset," Charles says. "What can I do to make it better, hm?"

Pietro looks away, a sudden picture of innocence. Wanda sniffles again and inches closer, murmuring, "Can I have a cookie?"

"Will cookies make you feel better?" Charles asks with feigned surprise. Both children nod eagerly. "Well, then I suppose we'll be having cookies for lunch."

There are two delighted gasps and Charles wheels away to raid the cookie jar that he knows Alex filled last night. He knows he should be giving them a proper lunch, sandwiches or vegetables or something healthy for growing seven-year-olds, but cookies make them happy and he wants to make them happy. Aside from the fact that they are pleasant, lovely children who deserve to be happy, they look so like Erik when they smile.

And, well, if Erik is upsetting them, Charles isn't above doing anything he can to make himself seem like the better option for the time being.

The three of them take their cookies and milk to the library, where Wanda and Pietro sit cross-legged on the floor at the coffee table. In between bites, they tell him all about how terrible and mean their father is and Charles nods sympathetically, even as they veer into the realm of exaggeration.

This is the third time the twins have appeared at the mansion unprompted and his fourth time seeing them. The first time they arrived without their father, Wanda hanging piggyback from Pietro's shoulders, Charles assumed they chose they place they thought would make their father unhappiest. By the end of that visit, however, he realized it was rather the opposite. They think of the mansion as someplace new and fun and _safe_ and Charles is the only person they know whom their father respects. It doesn't hurt, he thinks, that he's also the only adult they know who allows them to have a little fun.

Erik will be by to find them before the night is out, furious and guilty in a way that Charles used to be able to feel from miles away but is now forced to parse through the set of his jaw and the furrow in his brow. He'll be beautiful but terse as he collects them, with nothing more than a few stilted, angry sentences for Charles, as if Charles has pressured them to run away against their wills.

He pushes that from his mind for now, concentrates on the story that Pietro is telling, and almost misses the door to the library creaking open.

"Professor?"

He looks up just in time to see Jean peak around the door. Wanda and Pietro are immediately on their feet and hiding behind Charles' wheelchair.

"Jean," he says. "Come in. I don't think you've properly met our guests."

Jean's only a year older than the twins and she's obviously intrigued. She closes the door behind her and walks quickly over to Charles, peering around him with wide, curious eyes.

"It's okay, children," Charles says. "This is Jean. She's about your age. She's a student here. Jean, this is Wanda and her brother Pietro."

Wanda, uncharacteristically, steps out first. Jean's grin widens.

"Hello!" she says. "You have red hair, like me!" Wanda's hair is a little darker, actually--more auburn. Still she smiles tentatively.

"Yes," she says. She steps both forward towards Jean and closer to Charles in the same movement. 

"Wanda and Pietro don't get much chance to play with other children," Charles says. "Would you like to play with them this afternoon, until--" He almost says, _until their father comes for them_ , but he catches himself just in time. He quickly learned that his part in this great illusion is to allow them to believe that they really have run away, that they're never going back, and that their father will miss them and _then_ he'll be sorry for being so rude.

"Until your afternoon lessons," is how he ends his sentence, and Jean is already nodding eagerly.

"Yes, yes, I would!" Jean says. Ororo is still very young and Charles has yet to hire any female faculty for the school, though he's working on it. That leaves Jean frequently stuck playing with Scott and Bobby and Warren, who may be sweet to her, but are still a bunch of boys. He knows Jean misses female companionship, and Wanda's hesitant smile as Jean bounces up and down, clapping her hands happily, makes him wonder if Wanda has ever played with another girl her own age.

"Why don't you go and fetch a game and all four of us will play together, hm?"

"Okay!" Jean says. To Wanda, she adds, "Do you want to come with me? I can show you where we keep the games."

Wanda glances at Charles. He nods at her, smiling.

"Yes, please," she says, and looks startled when Jean grabs her hand and pulls her out of the room. Pietro looks just as startled watching his sister's retreating back.

"Go on," Charles says. "You can follow them. Help them pick a fun game."

It's all the encouragement Pietro needs; he's off like a shot after them, a literal cloud of dust in his wake. Being around other children will be good for them, Charles thinks. Particularly Jean, who's kind and compassionate and astute, probably the most socially adjusted of the children. He wants to do well by these children. He wants to do well by all mutant children, of course, but with the knowledge that all Erik has lost and all he's afraid of, he'd like to keep these children specifically safe and happy and loved.

If Erik can't love him, there are worse people for him to focus his attention on.

Jean and the twins bring back _Sorry_ , which is better, he supposes, than _Clue_ or _Monopoly_. She sets the board up on the coffee table and explains the rules to the twins while Charles quickly checks on the rest of the house. The boys are are playing ball with Sean outside. Alex and Armando are headed into town for groceries. Hank is back in his lab. Ororo is napping in the den. They should have the place to themselves for the afternoon.

They play two games of Sorry, one that Pietro wins and one that Jean wins, before Charles notices Hank calling the boys in and looks up at the clock.

"Jean, your afternoon lessons are going to be starting soon," he says.

Jean looks at the clock and frowns, then looks back to Wanda.

"Why don't you go wake Ororo up?" he asks her. "She's asleep in the den. When you're done with lessons, you can come back and join us and play some more."

"Okay," Jean says. She's still looking at the children and Charles can tell she's on the verge of asking if they're new students, if they're going to stay, and Charles doesn't know how to answer that in a way that's not upsetting to everyone involved.

"You'll have plenty of time to play with Wanda and Pietro in the future," Charles promises, which he thinks is the best and most truthful answer he can give.

"Okay!" Jean says again. "Bye for now!" She waves and the twins wave back, before she ducks out of the room calling, "Ororo! It's time for lessons!"

The twins watch her leave. Wanda looks particularly sad.

"Well," Charles says. "While the children are in lessons, why don't we see what's on television? I think there are some quiz shows on now."

Quiz shows usually aren't of interest to the other children at the school, but Wanda and Pietro are quick to follow Charles into his study, which is lower traffic than the den and houses an additional color television. The three of them manage to watch another hour or two of television uninterrupted before both children finally nod off on the couch. Charles waits until the conclusion of the program and then turns off the television set and moves to his desk to return to the paperwork he's been putting off since the twins' arrival. 

He works through the rest of the afternoon and straight through the end of lessons and into twilight. He's glad that he had already finished teaching for the day before Wanda and Pietro arrived, hoping to devote the afternoon to administrivia, although it probably wouldn't hurt to have the twins sit in on a science lab or history lesson.

Erik normally comes and fetches the children before dinner, and Charles is starting to wonder if he's coming at all when Hank knocks softly on the door to the office.

"Come in," Charles murmurs, sending a mental invitation as well. The door opens, but Hank only sticks his head inside.

"I just thought you'd like to know that Magneto just entered the grounds. He's on his way up to the house," Hank says. "I assume you want me to proceed as normal?"

"Thank you, Hank," Charles says. "If you or Alex or Armando or Sean happen to cross his path, nudge him in the right direction, if you will?"

"Sure," Hank says with the tone of someone who's following orders out of respect, not out of actual acknowledgement that he's doing the right thing. He closes the door quietly and then Charles is once again alone with the sleeping children. He continues to shift through correspondence until he hears the tumblers in the doorknob click back. He looks up in time to see the door swing silently open.

Erik would be a much more imposing figure if he didn't look so tired.

"Charles," he says, but his exhaustion slips through even on that curt greeting. Charles wants to massage his temples and the back of his neck until that tension bleeds away, but that's no longer his place. Erik is no longer his responsibility.

"Erik," Charles replies. He nods towards the chair in front of his desk, but Erik elects to stand. "How are you, my friend?"

Erik makes a noise that may be an attempt at a laugh.

"I'm here to collect my children, Charles, not to make small talk," Erik says.

"Your children are sleeping," Charles says. "Certainly you can spare a moment or two to relax before waking them."

Erik stares at them for a moment. He makes a movement, as if to rub his eyes, but stops abruptly, stymied by the helmet.

It feels like an age, but he does eventually sit down.

"They're very sweet," Charles says. He always says it. He wants to make it clear every time that the children aren't a burden, that he enjoys seeing them, that he would enjoy seeing them all the time if Erik would allow it.

Erik grunts in response, glancing over at them again.

"They're disobedient," he says. "I tell them time and again that you're not to be bothered."

"It's not a bother," Charles says. "Truly. I enjoy seeing them." Erik shifts his gaze back to Charles, frowning in a way that creases his forehead, though Charles can't see it through the helmet, is forced to rely on the sense memory of smoothing those wrinkles out with his fingertips. He wants to say, _They remind me of the best parts of you,_ but he'd rather save the maudlin sentiment until later, when he's alone with a glass of scotch and the embarrassing emptiness in his chest. 

He adds, instead, "They played with one of my students today. They enjoyed themselves, and Jean enjoyed having another girl to play with."

If anything, that deepens Erik's frown.

"Played?" he asks.

"Sorry, specifically," Charles says. Then, "Sorry is the name of a board game. Of course they played. What do you think happens when they come here?"

Erik shrugs and looks away. The frown has become less frustration and more discomfort. He closes his eyes and raises a hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. He's exhausted; it's plain to anyone, least of all to Charles who still knows him so well. Charles wants to comfort him, to hear his hardships, to soothe his worry.

He balls his hands into fists on his lap. He bites his lip. He waits for Erik to speak.

"I don't know," Erik finally says. "I assume you fill their heads with the nonsense you teach here."

"Well," Charles says dryly, "the 'nonsense I teach here' is primarily things like English and math, but no. Normally, we have a snack and then we play or read a book or watch the television until you return to fetch them."

"Oh," Erik says. "I hope caring for them isn't a burden to you. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I tell them to stop, they persist in running here."

Charles known from the start that though Pietro's super speed is what transports them to the grounds, his knowledge on how to get here comes from Erik's careful plan. Charles wonders if he's always been Erik's contingency plan with the children, or if that first flight to the mansion really was born of desperation. He wonders if Erik has figured out that Charles knows that Erik has drilled Pietro on the directions to the mansion again and again. He wonders if Erik knows that Charles is aware of the exact location of the Brotherhood's hide away, thanks to the unguarded minds of the twins. 

He wonders if Erik thinks less of him for not using the knowledge against them.

"It isn't a burden at all," Charles repeats. "Honestly. I enjoy children and I enjoy these children in particular." He considers whether to continue his thought, pausing to taking in Erik's demeanor. "I...hope it allows you a slight reprieve, at least. You look...tired."

Erik sets his jaw but doesn't speak for a long moment.

"I was unprepared to care for two children while also working to achieve my larger goal," he finally says.

They've not talked about this yet. The first time Erik brought the children here, it was because their base had been destroyed and he had no one else he could trust to protect them. _The humans found us,_ he told Charles when they arrived, streaked in soot and tears, clinging to him. _These are--Charles, these are my children. I need to know they're safe._

Charles hadn't asked questions. He knew then how fragile Erik's trust was, so he ushered them inside, helped them wash up and procured clean clothing for all of them, the children in relics of Charles and Raven's childhood wardrobe, Erik in the clothes he left behind. He'd set them up in the guest house he had converted into an apartment for Moira when she stayed over after her check-ins, and he'd never once said, _Why didn't you tell me?_ during the whole span of their three-day stay.

He decides that today, weeks later, after so many encounters with children he's become so fond of, he's ready to take that risk.

"So, your supervision of Wanda and Pietro wasn't your idea?" he says, carefully and as casually as he can manage. He holds his breath, but Erik doesn't shout or glare at him or leave.

"No," he says. "I didn't know they existed until nearly a year ago. My--my wife."

Charles nods, slowly, and wishes he had a drink or something to do with his hands. Erik has mentioned his wife before in passing. Charles knows he knew her before the camps, that he thought she was beautiful even then, that he thought it was a miracle they both survived. He didn't press for details. Maybe he should have.

"They were born after I left. There was a fire. I thought she was dead," Erik says. "Now she really is."

"Did you--" Charles starts to say. Erik cuts him off before he can finish, eye blazing, halfway to his feet.

"Of course not!" he snaps. "I cared for her."

Charles holds up his hands, shaking his head, anxious to keep Erik from retreating.

"That's not what I was going to ask," he says. "Did you love her?"

Erik settles back into his seat, but Charles regrets this question to as a shadow settles over his features. It's a stupid, selfish question.

"Not--" Erik hesitates. "I did. But she deserved better. I didn't love her the way I should have. I couldn't have. Not with Shaw still out there." 

The anger, the need for vengeance, all of that unspoken pain--Charles tries to imagine Erik young and lost and trying to do what he thought he should when all he wanted was blood on his hands. He wonders if Erik would still have found time for him if they weren't actively searching for Shaw and a way to bring him down, but he shuts down that thought. There's no need to compare himself to a woman he will never meet. He hopes, only, that she and Erik found some happiness between them while they could.

"I tried at first," Erik continues quietly. "Then, a year into our marriage, a year after the war, I saw a man I recognized in the town square. I went back that night to the inn and found him there, lured him away and--" He sighs. "I started taking trips after that, looking for them--anyone whose name I remembered, hoping that disposing of them would lessen the pain. It never did. She must have known what I was doing, but she never said anything, she just...looked at me. And it was fine, until one of them begged for his life by leveraging information about Shaw."

"That's how it started," Charles says softly. Erik nods.

"Longer trips, longer absences...I became obsessed. She became more and more unhappy. I swore I'd stop as soon as I found him, but one night I came back from a trip and our house was gone. Burned entirely to the ground." His eyes flick upward. He wants to take the helmet off, Charles can tell, and he holds his breath, crosses his fingers under the desk, but no. Erik rubs his forehead and continues. "Neighbors said it was the dead of night, robbers. She had surely died. None of them had seen her. I mourned her, but in a way I suppose I felt it was what I deserved. I left the next day and never looked back."

"And the children?" Charles asks.

"She survived the fire and...I suppose saw it as a way out of a marriage to a man who had drifted into another life," he says. "She married a man, one that didn't mind that she was already pregnant with another man's children. He's dead now, too. Emma found the children by chance when we were in Europe. I took them from their half-blind grandmother when Emma informed me of their gifts."

Charles wonders if Erik would have been so quick to snatch them away if they hadn't been mutants, but he keeps that thought to himself. This is the most he and Erik have talked since the beach, since before, and he can't ruin it now. Maybe he should offer Erik a drink or ask him if he'd like to stay for dinner, just the two of them, here in the study.

His plans are foiled, though, by a quiet, "Papa?" from the sofa. Pietro is blearily sitting up, though Wanda is still napping.

"We're going home," Erik says, but gently, and Pietro offers no debate as Erik gets to his feet. Erik gestures for him to stand, and then lifts Wanda from the couch, holding her against his chest, careful not to wake her. He holds out his free hand for Pietro, who takes it and sleepily leans against him. "Thank you, Charles, for watching the children."

"Any time, Erik," Charles says. "I mean it."

Erik leaves without further acknowledging him or even turning back, but Charles still counts it as a victory, turning it over in his head as he finally pours himself a scotch and wonders if maybe they're reaching a turning point.

***

It's an unseasonably warm May Saturday, a little over a week after Erik walks out of the office, when Charles sees Wanda and Pietro next. 

He's out in the yard with the students. Alex and Armando are trying to pull together a baseball game that's rather lax on the rules with only six players total, while Ororo very carefully practices flying in the midafternoon sun, Charles cheering her on from his spot in the shade. Sean is in town picking up some groceries so they can fire up the grill for dinner, at Armando's earlier suggestion, and the whole afternoon is just so lovely that he finds himself smiling as he feels Pietro and Wanda approach. This is a good day to be here. This is a day they deserve to experience.

 _Don't be shy_ , he tell them when they finally get within sight and stop abruptly along the hedge, watching the other children warily. _Come on over. I'm sure they'd love to have two more playmates._

The children still hesitate, until Jean glances away from the impromptu baseball diamond and catches sight of them.

" _Wanda_!" she shouts, and takes off towards them, her braids bouncing behind her. Wanda smiles and hurries to meet her halfway. Pietro watches for a moment, and then joins them. "Wanda, you're back!" Jean says, breathless. "Do you want to play something?"

Wanda glances at Charles, but he nods.

"Okay," she says. "What do you want to play?"

The boys have taken notice now, too, as well as Alex and Armando. Ororo lands messily in front of Charles, but jumps up easily enough and runs over to him.

"Who are they?" she asks in a whisper loud enough for everyone else to hear. The boys' game has broken up now, as they also approach. Pietro looks wary and Jean takes Wanda's hand beaming.

"This is Pietro and Wanda," Charles says. "They're the children of my friend, Erik. Sometimes they come here to stay."

"Everyone's gone," Wanda says. "Papa told us to stay inside, and he left _Toad_ and it's _boring_ so we came here."

The fact that everyone's gone should be worrying, but Charles forces himself not to think about it, to focus instead on the beautiful day.

"Well, hopefully it will be less boring here," Charles says. "I think the boys and girls were playing baseball, if you'd like to join them."

"Let's!" Jean says. "It's fun!"

"If you guys want to play, we can have even teams," Armando says, tossing a baseball up and catching it a few times. And, proving as always that he's by far the most emotionally receptive of any of them, he adds, "And we're mostly just teaching everyone to play today, so it's a good day to be here--everyone's learning."

 _Thank you,_ Charles says to Armando as Jean and Wanda join the others with Pietro. _It's a long story._

 _Not my place to ask,_ Armando replies. _But it does make some of Jean's comments about playing with other kids make a little more sense now._

 _I'll fill you all in later,_ Charles assures him, but isn't sure what he means by that even as he thinks it. He certainly won't betray Erik's confidence about his life after the war and before his quest to find Shaw. What can he say of the children that won't be a secret that's not his to tell? What about the secrets that are his? Alex, Sean, Armando, Hank...they're proud of him, he knows, for moving on, collecting the pieces of his life and pushing forward. Here's proof that he hasn't, that he's still pathetically tied to Erik and willing to make allowances for him.

He has all day to decide how much to tell the boys, however. For the moment, he's reluctant to ruin the beautiful day with pointless anxiety, and pushes the dilemma to the back of his mind, refocusing his attention on the game as Ororo runs over to join in, her curiosity about the new children outweighing her desire to practice flying. Before long, they're on two teams, with Alex and Armando each coaching and patiently explaining the rules of the game and the positions to the others. Charles watches them, drowsing slightly, as they take turns batting and fielding, arguing about whether it's okay to use powers.

Sean returns eventually, after longer than it should have taken, his mind excited and flushed from an extended encounter with a local girl he has a crush on, one of the cashiers at the grocery store. He stows away the food and joins the baseball game, adding to the excitement and joy already emanating from that part of the yard. It makes Charles feel at ease--he pulls it around himself like a blanket, reminded of why this school was a good idea, why it's only going to get better as they expand and start an actual semester in the fall.

Not even Erik's arrival, announced by Hank who catches him on the security cameras in the lab and informs Charles telepathically, can smother Charles' good will. He merely invites Hank to come out and join the rest of them and opens his eyes, looking towards the edge of the drive to catch Erik's attention when he finally comes into view.

He waves Erik towards where he's sitting in the shade before the children can get sight of him and before Erik can do something silly, like shout at them for having fun. And they are having fun--they're laughing and shrieking and running around with the other children, looking happier than Charles has ever seen them. His heart aches for them--it must be so lonely, growing up with no other playmates. He would know.

"Come, sit," he says once Erik is in hearing distance. "It's a beautiful day."

"I'm here for my children, Charles," Erik says. "Nothing more."

"Well, your children are having a great deal of fun and getting much needed exercise," Charles says. "Surely you can let them wear themselves out before you drag them home. It's good for them."

Charles can tell Erik is torn, even with the helmet casting shadows over his face. He looks out at the baseball game, where Wanda is up at bat as Jean and Alex and Scott cheer her on. He turns his gaze back to Charles. Charles can see his eyes now, uncertain and hesitant and almost out of character, and he offers Erik a tentative smile.

"I could always use the company," he says, and something else flashes across Erik's face before it settles into a reluctant sort of resignation that Charles can tell is for show.

"If you insist," he says, sighing. "I suppose I can sit with you. Better for them to tire themselves out here than run around their quarters raising hell."

"Exactly," Charles says. He beams as Erik raises a hand to summon one of the wrought iron deck chairs further up the patio. He arranges it next to Charles and watches the baseball game.

"They're so sweet, Erik," Charles says, because the children are probably the safest conversational route. "And quite bright."

"Hm," Erik says. There's a loud crack as Wanda hits the baseball dead on, sending it flying over everyone's heads and past Armando, who jogs over to get it as Jean and Scott shriek, "Run, RUN!" to her. She does, laughing, and Charles notes that Armando perhaps takes longer retrieving the ball than he needs to. Wanda gets all the way to third base before he throws it back home and all of the children, regardless of team, are jumping up and down excitedly. 

Beside Charles, Erik's lips curl into a smile.

Charles decides to capitalize on this good will. He waits a moment, and then says, casually, "You know, I'm sure that helmet can't be comfortable in this heat."

Erik turns his head slightly and gives Charles a skeptical look, which Charles meets with his best innocent gaze.

Neither of them say anything further, but only a few minutes later Erik lifts off the helmet and places it on the grass beside him.

Charles smiles.

***

It's half an hour later--half an hour of silent companionship--that Alex slips out of the game so he can start the grill for dinner. He crosses the lawn with a steely, determined stride, and stops in front of Charles and Erik with his jaw set.

"Should I be grilling for three more?" he asks. He's trying to set Erik on fire with his glare alone, and as setting Erik on fire is a very real possibility with Alex, Charles neatly interjects.

"You might as well feed them before taking them home," he says to Erik. "If you'd prefer, we can eat in my study."

"What, so you can hide away your dirty little secret?" Erik snaps, but Charles doesn't react. He can tell it's more Erik's embarrassment of being caught here by Alex than belief that Charles wants to hide him away.

"You know you're always welcome here," Charles says to Erik. "The boys know you're always welcome here as well. I merely assumed you'd want some privacy and perhaps to avoid sharing a meal with seven children."

Charles doesn't press to read the emotions behind Erik's conflicted expression. He could, and that's enough for now--the knowledge that there's still a spark of trust, a kernel of the affection they once shared, even if it only allows for this and nothing more. Instead, he watches Erik for his decision.

"Fine," Erik says eventually. "It's one less thing that I have to do, then."

"Fine," Alex repeats.

"Give a shout when you're done and I'll come and collect our portions," Charles says. "For now, I believe Erik and I will proceed to the study."

"Will do," Alex says, and with one last sharp look at Erik, retreats towards the grill.

Erik glares at his retreating back.

"Be kind," Charles says. "Alex has proven himself a very loyal companion and a trusted guardian for his brother. We've all changed over the last seven months, more than you know."

The implications hover between them. Charles knows he should apologize, but he stays quiet as Erik shifts minutely in his seat. 

"Inside?" Charles finally says, and Erik nods stiffly. He stands, but waits for Charles to turn and make his way up the path before following.

They settle into old habits easily. Erik sits on the side of the chessboard he favored when they were together, and Charles wonders, absently, if his memory of Erik in that chair was what caused him to have the boys remove the other when they were renovating the office. He wants to offer Erik a drink, mostly because he's desperate for one himself, but it's best to face this with a clear head.

"Armando has given me a stack of books to read," Charles says five moves into the silent game. "He's been teaching English literature to the children. Right now it's more reading and writing, but he's planning a syllabus for when we have more students in the fall and he wants me to approve it, but I've not even heard of half the books. He claims that is unacceptable. He's worse than you are for shaming me for my narrow scope of literature."

"Really, Charles?" Erik says. "We're going to talk about books?"

"Well, politics are out," Charles says. "And I imagine that you won't be eager to tell me what you've been up to lately, nor do you want to hear about the school or my personal life, so books seem like a relatively safe topic."

Erik considers this for a moment. He moves his bishop.

"Books it is, then," Erik says. "What has Darwin suggested?"

It's a halting conversation. Charles does his best to tread lightly and he finds that Erik, too, is more tentative in his responses to Charles' opinions than he ever has been before. It's strange, for two men who shouted and insulted each other regularly when they were in love to be so polite, strange for politeness to be so foreign, but it's not the hardest thing to adjust to in all that's happened between them and Charles finds he's been so starved for Erik's company that even this sterilized conversation is enough to make him smile.

When Alex calls him for dinner, Erik puts up a hand to keep him from leaving.

"I can find my way out there well enough and you'll only get distracted seeing to all of those brats," Erik says. As far as excuses in deference to his paralysis go, it's subtle and not untrue, so Charles allows it, waving Erik away from the chessboard and offering them a slight respite from each other's company. Charles can't speak for Erik--he wonders, now, if he ever really could--but he needs the break to sort his head out.

Stilted as the conversation may be, it's the first time he and Erik have really been together since Cuba. The three days he took shelter here with the children were fraught and though Charles visited them each day in the guest house, he was never alone with Erik. Their few minutes together the last time the children visited were refreshing, cool drips of water to a man dying of thirst. Now, Charles fears he's on the precipice of drowning.

He misses Erik. He misses Erik every day, but this, being so close to him, being so near to what they used to have, is like a very exquisite form of torture that just makes him miss Erik even more. The school is an enormous undertaking on his own, even with the occasional help from Moira and the assistance provided by the boys. His mind can't help but wander back to the school he and Erik planned and dreamed about on their recruitment trip. He can't help but daydream about the world where Erik came home with him, where they built the school together, where loneliness had no time to sink its claws into Charles because Erik was at his side day and night.

He sighs and rubs his forehead. He's fleetingly happy and deeply exhausted. It's a strange combination, but one he must become accustomed to if Erik's children are going to continue to find refuge at his school.

It's only a few minutes before Erik returns, carrying two plates. He bypasses the chess set and places them on the table currently serving as a depository of all of the paperwork he needs to finish to officially open the school come September. Erik piles it neatly to one side, then gestures Charles to come forward.

"If you eat in front of the chess table, you'll not really eat," Erik says impatiently as Charles hesitates. Then, as if sensing the remark might cross a line back into their old familiarity, "And I certainly won't be able to concentrate on the game watching you chew."

Charles crosses towards the table without comment, hiding a smile. Erik doesn't meet his eyes as he lifts his fork.

"Summers had some choice words for me," he says. "The rest certainly said enough with their eyes."

"They're very protective of the school and its pupils," Charles says.

"They're very protective of you," Erik corrects. He looks up at Charles and Charles can't look away. He doesn't know how he's expected to respond to that. He breathes in, shallowly, but no words come. Eventually, Erik shakes his head and says, "Summers was itching to call MacTaggert. I could tell that even without telepathy."

"It's not as if Moira would lock you up upon sight," Charles lies.

"You're right," Erik mutters, "she'd beat me first, if she could get close enough."

"She's not with the CIA anymore, you know," Charles says to avoid agreeing with Erik. He's right--Moira wouldn't hesitate before attacking and subduing him, then turning him in, but less from a desire to close a case for a group of men who left her to die and underestimated her abilities and instead to settle her own guilt about what happened that day on the beach. "She has a new job with a new agency that has no desire to hunt us down."

"No, instead it desires to use us," Erik says darkly.

"Not without our consent," Charles says. "They've been very helpful."

"For the moment."

Charles sighs. He puts his fork down and rubs his forehead, closing his eyes. This is exactly what he didn't want to happen, exactly the reason he steered the conversation towards literature.

"I don't want to argue politics," he says, opening his eyes again. Erik's face remains unreadable as Charles picks up his silverware and goes back to his dinner. "I merely wanted to give you an update on Moira. She's well and she visits often."

"And I merely wanted to make it clear I don't care how your human friend is doing," Erik replies.

Charles drops his silverware abruptly and squeezes his eyes shut. His immediate reaction is to shout. He wants to shout at Erik. But if he starts shouting about Moira, before long he'll be shouting about politics and the school and his paralysis and being complicit in Sebastian Shaw's murder. He'll start shouting and not stop until Erik leaves or makes him or, horrifyingly, Charles starts to cry.

It's been such a lovely day. He doesn't want to ruin it. Why is Erik intent on ruining it?

"I don't think I'm hungry any longer," Charles manages to say evenly. There's a ripple in the steady wave of disinterest that Erik has been forcing himself to emanate for most of their meal. It's just a split second of contrition, but it's enough to make Charles open his eyes and unfist his hands. Erik is uncertain.

"Wait--" Erik says, but the silence drags on. Charles breathes out slowly, and it's only then that Erik says, haltingly. "Tell me about--what are your thoughts on the Ginsberg Darwin assigned you?"

Charles takes a moment to settle himself and another to appreciate how distinctly pained and uncomfortable Erik looks. He slowly picks up his silverware again.

"I've only just read it the once so far," he warns. "And I do think it stands for further scrutiny than that."

"It does," Erik says. He swallows and pushes his salad around the plate, though his eyes don't leave Charles. "Tell me anyway."

Charles does.

***

The sun has already set by the time Erik gathers Wanda and Pietro. Hank and Alex are watching dubiously from the hallway, but say nothing, allowing their glares to speak for them. Armando and Sean are attempting to round the others up for bed. Erik hadn't wanted to make a production of their departure, Charles is sure of it, but Jean and Wanda are clinging to each other still.

"Are you going to come back?" Jean asks plaintively, staring at Wanda with sad green eyes. Charles' heart aches for her. She's lonely, yes, but more than that, he can relate. He wants to ask the same thing of Erik, to hold his hand and beg him to return, to believe that this was a first step and not a fluke of timing and circumstance.

He keeps his mouth shut and digs his fingernails into his palms to keep from reaching out.

Wanda hesitantly looks up at her father and then over at her brother, then leans in and whispers in Jean's ear, loud enough for Charles and Erik to hear, "Yes!"

Jean hugs Wanda tightly. Charles can't stop the smile that threatens. When he looks up at Erik, he knows that Erik is fighting a smile too.

He sleeps easier that night than he has in months.

***

It's Armando who comes to him at lunch. The other boys have studiously acted as if nothing was wrong, and as such, Charles knew, immediately, they were planning something. He's not surprised it's Armando they've chosen to be their emissary. While Charles may speak easiest with Hank, who slips into science as a second language, it's Armando who is the most logical and least likely to escalate the conversation into a confrontation. Perhaps most importantly, however, Armando is the only one who wasn't witness to Erik's betrayal. Charles can trust him to be objective without flashing back to the sharp pain of abandonment and the lingering smell of sulphur as they huddled together, alone on the beach in the aftermath of the end of their world.

"Hey, Prof," Armando says, sticking his head into Charles' office. "I've got some lunch."

It's Sunday--Monday through Friday all meals are served together, but breakfasts and lunches are a free-for-all on weekends. Charles would have gone for a sandwich eventually, but he appreciates Armando's offer, even though he knows it's little more than an excuse to sit down with Charles alone.

"Wonderful," Charles says. "I'm famished. Thank you, Armando."

Armando puts two plates down at Charles' desk. It's just sandwiches and chips, but Charles' stomach rumbles--he may have skipped breakfast entirely. Armando settles in across from him and has the decency to wait until they're mostly through their sandwiches before bringing up Charles' foolishness.

"So," he says. "I didn't know Erik had kids."

"Nor did he, until recently," Charles says. He moves a chip across his plate with the tip of his finger. "It's not my story to tell, though."

"Fair enough," Armando says. "They seem like like nice enough kids. Jean loves Wanda."

"I'm going to try my hardest to get some more girls Jean's age for the fall semester," Charles says. He can't hold off the conversation that Armando wants to have for much longer, but he can certainly try.

"I'm sure she'd like that," Armando says. "I'm not going to pretend the other guys sent me up here to talk about recruitment, though."

Charles looks up and forces a wry smile. "I didn't imagine you would," he says.

"So, pleasantries aside, how are you doing?"

Charles considers the question. He's exhausted. Erik has invaded his thoughts more frequently these past few weeks than he had even in the first few days they knew each other, before they were involved sexually. His heart aches for Erik and his children. His heart aches for himself and the reminder that he trusted Erik to look out for him and instead, Erik nearly destroyed him. His heart aches because even during the worst of his recovery, the most grueling sessions of physical therapy, he's never been able to make himself stop loving Erik, when Erik has so clearly managed to stop loving him.

Still, hope is his greatest weakness and he finds himself saying to Armando, "Tired. Wary. Not unhappy."

"Huh," Armando says. "I know I wasn't there when everything went down, but from what Alex and Hank and Sean tell me...it wasn't pretty. Or kind."

"War rarely is," Charles says. "And war is what Erik is trying to start."

"But you let him come here and play chess and let his kids run around," Armando says.

"Don't," Charles says quickly, although there's no judgement in Armando's tone. Armando holds his hands up placatingly.

"Hey, I'm not saying it's good or bad," Armando says. "I'm saying...I wasn't there when things went down and you never talk about it and I'm trying to figure out how we should navigate this whole thing. Alex is spitting nails. Hank won't talk about it. Even Sean is ruffled. I don't know what to feel, but I know Erik hurt you and I also know you...well, I don't know for certain how far it went, but you spent a lot of time with the guy before everything turned upside down."

Erik's betrayals are secondhand to Armando. Armando remembers Erik as he was before the Russia trip--unapproachable, but loyal and smart with a sharp sense of humor and tunnelvision. Armando accepts their version of events--stunned and disappointed when the scene was described for him--but he doesn't hate Erik. He feels dismayed at Erik's departure, but it didn't destroy him. 

It's because of that Charles allows himself to say, "It went exactly as far as you're thinking. Farther, probably. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life with him."

Armando whistles quietly. 

"That's pretty far," he says. 

"I want to make a home for all mutant children," Charles says. "I want to make a place where all of us feel we belong with no reservations. But you can see, now, why I would want it for those children particularly. I need them to feel welcome here."

"So their father feels welcome here, too," Armando says.

"He always is," Charles says. "And he's never, I think, felt welcome anywhere else since he was a very small boy."

Armando nods. He looks thoughtful as he finishes his sandwich, but he doesn't ask anything further and Charles tries to relax his defenses. The worst the boys will do is shout at him, and he doubts they even have the courage to do that if they're sending Armando to talk him down.

"I know you're an adult," Armando says when he finishes, placing his napkin on top of his plate, "but I'm gonna say this anyway--not because I think you need to hear it, but because I like you and I don't want you to get hurt."

 _Again,_ he doesn't say.

"And what is it that you're going to say?" Charles asks.

"Be careful," Armando says. He smiles at Charles, almost apologetic, and gets to his feet. "I told Ororo I'd read her a story after lunch. Have a good afternoon, Professor."

"Thank you, Armando," Charles says, watching him go. "You as well."

The door to Charles' office closes. Charles absently nibbles on a potato chip. He wishes, not for the first time, that he had any idea what he was doing.

***

He expected Armando. It would have been strange if the boys had said nothing, having known Erik, having guessed--at least on Armando's part--at the nature of his relationship with Erik.

He doesn't expect Jean.

She finds him in the library, picking out a new book to read to the children before bed. She's already dressed in her pajamas and without the presence of any of the boys, at least one of whom is usually trailing after her.

"Professor?" she asks softly. Charles rolls towards one of the sofas and gestures for her to join him by sitting on it. She crosses the room quickly and sits. 

"What's on your mind, darling?" he asks.

"Are Wanda and Pietro going to come to school with us?" she asks. "You keep saying more kids are going to come in September. Are Wanda and Pietro some of the kids who are coming?"

"I don't know," Charles says honestly. "Would you like them to come?"

"Yes!" Jean says. "Wanda is my best friend!"

They've only met twice and they're already best friends. Charles longs for the simplicity of friendship that comes with childhood. How easy this would be if he could take Erik's hand and declare them best friends for life with no thought to the logistics of it all.

But then, he and Erik have always been a little too complicated for simply friendship.

"I'd like them to come too," Charles says. "But it's not up to us--it's not even up to them. Their father has to decide they're allowed to come here, and I don't know that he thinks it's a good idea just yet."

"Wanda said her dad is your friend and that's why they come here," Jean says. "Can't you just tell him how great the school is so he lets them come?"

Did Erik describe them as friends to his children, or is that just Wanda's inference? Does Erik truly still think of them as friends, or was it the easiest explanation, the most natural lie as he hurried the children to take shelter at the mansion that first night?

"It's a little more complicated than that," he tells Jean. "Their father--he and I--well, we don't always get along. We don't always--" He hears Erik's voice in his head, a desperate plea, _we want the same things_ , even though Erik had to know that wasn't true, even then. "--we don't always want the same things," he says anyway, maybe to spite the ghost of Erik in his mind. "And it's true that once we were very close, but--there are different kinds of love, Jean. And different kinds of friendship."

"Like I love my mom and dad and like my mom and dad love each other and like I love all the kids here," Jean supplies.

"Yes," Charles agrees. "Those are a few of them. And sometimes, how you love someone can change. And if it changes for one person, but not the other, things become complicated. Very messy. And it's hard, sometimes, for two people who love each other in different ways to get along."

He wonders if any of that makes sense, if it's all gibberish to an eight year old or if the truth is shining through. He could look, of course, but he's not sure he's ready to see what's reflected back at him.

"When Wanda and Pietro's father is here, sometimes you're really happy and sometimes you're really sad," Jean says. "I can't tell if he's happy or sad. His head is just blank. Except last time. Last time he was happy."

"Was he?" Charles asks.

"Yes," Jean says. "Couldn't you tell too?"

"I could, but sometimes it's hard to tell if he really is happy or if I just want him to be happy so badly that I pretend he is."

"He was happy," Jean says confidently. "I think he's going to let them come to school. Maybe he'll come with them, then you can be happy too!"

"I certainly would be," is all Charles can think to say in response, still a little stunned by the hope he can't quite extinguish, flaring back up as Jean waves goodnight and hops off the couch, heading back towards her room.

***

It's less than a week until Wanda and Pietro are slipping into the kitchen again on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. When Charles meets them there, it's not anger or fear or petulance they're feeling, but boredom.

"Everyone's gone again," Pietro says. "Even Toad. It's really boring there."

"And there are no cookies," Wanda adds, glancing over at the cabinet where they both know Charles keeps his secret stash. He rolls over it obligingly and pulls out the jar. 

"Well," he says. "We can't have that."

"Are the other kids here?" Wanda asks him. _Is Jean here?_ she's thinking, and Charles wishes that they were, because he's become quite fond of giving the children what they want.

"I'm afraid not," he tells them. "They all went into town on a trip with their teachers." Before Wanda and Pietro's faces can fall too far, though, he adds, "But they'll be back after lunch, so why don't we go play a game or watch some television and eat our cookies while we wait?"

Unsurprisingly, this plan is met with enthusiasm.

There's a game show on and Pietro sits crosslegged in front of it, eating his plate of cookies, watching the program, and occasionally jumping up and shooting around the living room at super speed to investigate some nook or cranny or object that catches his eye. Wanda sits on the sofa next to Charles and eats quietly, glancing up at him from time to time. She looks, too, at the wheelchair locked next to the sofa, and it's not long before she hesitantly tugs his sleeve to get his attention.

"My Papa says a bad man hurt you and that's why you have a wheelchair," she says. 

Charles chokes on his cookie. To Charles' face, Erik still blames everything--the fight, the destruction, Charles' injury--on the humans. The injury, despite Charles' angry assertions that Erik holds the blame, has always been referred to as Moira's fault. A human woman, flawed, stupid enough to use a gun on Erik despite knowing what he could do, no matter than she had identified within seconds the main barrier to reasoning with Erik, no matter that she was aiming at the helmet and all of her shots would have hit their target if Erik hadn't carelessly waved them away.

Charles clears his throat. Before he can say anything, though, Wanda speaks again.

"Was Papa the bad man?" she asks quietly.

Charles swallows.

"Do you think your Papa is bad?" he asks her softly. She considers this.

"No," she says. "He's mean sometimes, but he's not bad."

"Why do you think it was him, then?" he asks. She needs no pause before this answer.

"Because he calls himself bad," she says. "He says he's done bad things. When I asked him why we couldn't stay with all the other kids, he said it was because you hurt each other once. But you're really nice and I don't think you hurt people."

Charles lays a hand on Wanda's back, a gesture of comfort more for himself than for her. She's so small--they all are, all the children at the school. He can hold Ororo in his arms, still. Even Warren, the tallest of them, gangling with his wings, is barely taller standing up than Charles is in his wheelchair. What in the world has made him think he's qualified to protect these children, to teach them, to answer their questions? What in the world has made him think he knows what to say in a situation like this?

"Sometimes we hurt people without meaning to," he finally says. "Sometimes we say something without thinking, something very cruel, and don't realize it until after. Sometimes we want to be cruel, because even though we love the person we're talking to, we're not very happy with them and we want them to hurt so they're unhappy too. And sometimes we _do_ things without thinking and those things can hurt other people too. And that's what happened. Your father did something without thinking and it hurt me--and yes, that's why I have to use the wheelchair. And after he hurt me, I said something cruel to make him hurt, too."

"He started it?" Wanda asks.

"No," Charles says. "Someone hurt him first, someone else, a long time ago, but he was hurt so badly that he's carried it with him. He didn't mean to hurt me, love. Not really."

"But he did," Wanda says. "He was mean. Why is he so mean?"

"Oh, he doesn't mean to be, darling, not on purpose," Charles says to her. She looks on expectantly and he tries to parse a child-friendly explanation. What he wants to do is tell her it's because he destroys everything he loves, because he's terrible and because he doesn't care about other people. He wants to tell her all the things that go through his head on nights that he can't sleep, on nights that he lies awake, staring at the empty side of the bed and imagining a million different worlds where Erik stayed, where none of this happened, where they're happy. He wants to tell her all the cruel things he thought from his hospital bed and the crueler things he thought after the first time Erik's people fought his own. 

She's just a child, though, and Erik is her father. More than that, despite her occasional childish anger at his sharp words, Charles knows the real reason for their constant flight to the mansion. More, even, than the company of other children, he knows Wanda and Pietro long for Erik's affection, for his attention and they've discovered that this is a surefire way to capture it. He knows, too, that family is important to Erik above almost all else, that he loves his children with all his heart, but that it's been a long time since he loved anyone without destroying them.

"Some people," Charles says very carefully, stroking her hair off of her forehead, "are afraid to get close to those they love. Some people are afraid that if they love someone too much, they'll hurt them. Your father doesn't want to hurt you. And, more than that, it's been a very, very long time since he's had to take care of someone. He's just afraid to get it wrong, I think. Like I said, a long time ago, someone hurt your father very badly. He's afraid, now, that because this man hurt him so badly and for so long, that he's forgotten how to care for other people, that he doesn't know how to do it right."

"That's stupid," Wanda says. "He loves us and he loves you and he does it right."

"Well, he loves you," he says to Wanda, his throat tightening at her words. "And as you and Pietro are smart and kind and happy, I think you're right."

Wanda smiles for a moment, but it quickly dissipates.

"Can we come to school here, Charles?" she asks. There's a hint of desperation in her words, a glimpse of the loneliness he remembers from his own childhood. "Can we come to school with the other kids?"

"That's up to your father, I'm afraid," Charles says, as much as he wants to welcome her with open arms. He rubs her back again and she leans against him, tucking her head against his side. 

"He doesn't want to talk about it," Wanda says. "He says it's complicated. He says it's for adults." Those excuses are hardly any different than the ones Charles is giving, probably because there's truth in them. It's all down to the petty differences of a pair of adults. He hates that the children are being punished for a disagreement between Charles and Erik, but he doubts Erik would take his counsel on the matter, nor much respect his opinion should he try and voice it.

"I'm sorry, darling," he says. "But if he ever changes his mind, you are absolutely more than welcome to come to the school. Just like you're always welcome to visit on days like today, when you're bored and want to see the other children."

"Really?" Wanda asks.

"Of course," Charles says. "I know this isn't your home, not really, but think of it as a second home. And if anything ever bothers you, if you ever need to get away or just want somewhere quiet to sit or someone to talk to, you will always, _always_ have a place here."

Wanda hugs him, her arms tight around his middle and her face pressed against his chest. She's happy and sad both, excited and a little scared, but mostly she's feeling very loved, so much that it blankets Charles as well.

"Thank you," she says. "I miss home. I miss my grandma. But I really like it here."

"I like having you here," Charles says. He hugs her back and hopes that this--the knowledge that she'll always have a home--will be enough to get her through the war that he knows that Erik wants to bring down upon them all.

***

When the other children return with Sean and Alex and Armando, Charles sends Wanda and Pietro off to join them and quickly tells the boys to put afternoon lessons on hold in deference to their visitors. 

_It's probably not a good idea to keep cancelling lessons whenever Erik's kids are here,_ Armando projects towards him. 

_Give them this day,_ Charles replies. _When Erik comes to fetch them, I'll talk to him about it. If all else fails, we can start having them sit through the lessons as well. They could probably use the instruction. I doubt he has them in school._

He lets himself have that fantasy, of just slowly absorbing Wanda and Pietro into his school until they're coming every day and Erik is coming every day to retrieve them. And Erik stays for longer and longer until it makes sense for him to just spend the night....

No matter how firmly Jean insists Erik is happier in his presence, no matter how many times Wanda tells Charles that he's Erik's friend, he shouldn't let himself wander down that road. In the end, he's only going to hurt himself.

He tries to pass the time by grading and doing paperwork, but he starts at every creaking floorboard, at every rattling window, looking up for Erik. He'll offer Erik dinner, he thinks, and he'll ask if the children have a tutor. He'll offer to tutor them a bit, not regularly, if Erik seems adverse to the idea, but just for an hour or so whenever they come to visit, just enough to start to catch them up to their age group. Charles isn't sure he'll agree even to that, but this is his fantasy--his tame, depressing fantasy where all he needs is Erik to allow permission to Charles to catch a glimpse of him on pick-up periodically over several weeks--and he imagines Erik nodding and seeing sense, agreeing that education is important, admitting that the children need a chance to flex their mutations and stretch their intellectual wings.

Dinner comes and goes, though, and Erik never appears. Charles eats at the table with the boys and the children and looks up at every noise, but they make it through the meal without Erik arriving. 

A nightcap, then. He'll offer Erik a nightcap.

He pushes the children's curfew back by an hour, even as the boys eye him warily, and returns to his office, but even as eight thirty becomes nine thirty, there's no word from Erik. He tries not to worry, even when Wanda and Pietro return to his office at quarter to ten, sleepy and rubbing their eyes.

"I'm sure your father will be here soon," Charles tells them.

"He said he would be gone until bedtime," Pietro says, and Charles wonders what time their bedtime is normally, how long it will take Erik to realize they're gone again and make his way to the mansion. He wishes he had asked Pietro or Wanda earlier--not only would it have saved him the embarrassing trouble of imagining the time to sit down and have a conversation with Erik, but he could have suggested a living room sleepover to the children. As it is, he's hesitant to send Wanda and Pietro to room with the students; if Erik is in a foul mood, storming into a child's bedroom while shouting might be a possibility.

"Let's sit on the couch and I'll read you both a story," Charles says. He rolls over to his desk, where a copy of _The Phantom Tollbooth_ is covered by the paperwork he's been doing for the past few days. He and the boys have taken turns reading chapters to the children each night, but they've since finished and moved on to _My Side of the Mountain_. Charles, for all he tends to prefer realistic stories to fantasy, thinks he enjoyed _The Phantom Tollbooth_ more, and it can't hurt to introduce a little fantasy into Wanda and Pietro's life.

He makes his way over to the couch and transfers over, settling as gracefully as he can in the middle as Wanda and Pietro watch warily. 

"Come on, then," he says. "We can take turns reading, if you'd like."

"Is it in German?" Wanda asks eagerly.

"No, I'm afraid it's in English," Charles says. Wanda frowns, but still climbs up to sit next to him, and Pietro follows after a moment's hesitation. "Can you only read German, then?"

"When we lived with our grandparents, we went to school and that was in Germany," Wanda says. "And we came here, and Ms. Frost helped us speak English and listen to English, but we can't read."

"Ms. Frost, ah, helped you?" Charles asked. Somehow, he doesn't think she sat them down with alphabet books and primary readers.

"She went into our brains," Pietro says, smacking his head with the palm of his hand in illustration. "And she went into Mystique's brain and she gave us Mystique's English and gave Mystique our German."

Charles doesn't freeze up at the mention of his sister, but it's a near thing. It also explains how their conversational English is good--Raven's particular brand of English would have included both the nearest to a young person's slang that Erik would have had at his disposal, as well as the formal English of their upbringing.

He doesn't want to know why Raven needs to be fluent in German.

Not for the first time, not even for the first time today, Charles wishes they were on the same side. He wishes he could sit down to tea with Emma, talk to her about their various tricks and shortcuts, figure out how their miraculous ability works.

He won't get that chance though. Best not to think about it, although he'll certain mull over how she managed to do it. Ororo is their only recruit from overseas at the moment, and she spent the first four years of her life in New York before her parents died in Egypt. They might not get so lucky with the English abilities of their students from other countries next time.

For now, he puts it out of his mind.

"Well," he says to the children, "This is in English, but if you read it along with me, maybe you can start to recognize some of the words." He opens the book to the first page, clears his throat, and begins.

"Chapter one--Milo. _There once was a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself--not just sometimes, but always..._ "

***

The children are exhausted--they nod off before the end of chapter two, their eyes drooping not long after Charles begins. With Wanda's head in his lap, and Pietro slumped against his side, he can't very well get up retrieve his work or a book of his own. He contemplates calling out to one of the boys--Armando or Alex would be his best bets, thanks to Armando's willingness to trust him with all matters Erik-related and Alex's soft spot for children--but he doesn't want to bother them. He may be able to wiggle out and keep them asleep with some telepathy tricks, but that seems insincere. Maybe they'll shift of their own accord after a moment or two....

He falls asleep between one thought and the next.

The feeling of someone approaching slowly rouses him from sleep. He's trained his mind over the years to sleep through people moving about the house, in and out of the ten to twenty foot net of absolute psychic attention that doesn't recede as he sleeps. It takes him a moment to discover why he's woken this time, but once he does, his eyes snap open.

Erik. It's Erik. Erik, wearing no helmet and quietly closing the study door.

"Erik," Charles tries to say, but it comes out sleep-hoarse and softer than he'd like.

"I apologize for being held up for so long," Erik says. He sits in an armchair across from the sofa and rubs his forehead, eyes squeezed shut. Charles chances a glance at his watch--it's after midnight.

"It's fine," Charles says softly. "We read together and they fell asleep before long." There's a certain amount of vulnerability in Erik's posture, in the line of his shoulders, in the curve of his mouth, so Charles adds, hesitantly, "Next time, if you'd like, I can put them to bed properly. A sleepover with the other children, or just into one of the spare rooms."

Erik makes a noise that might be a chuckle; he doesn't open his eyes.

"Next time," he repeats. He sighs and opens his eyes. "I'm tired, Charles."

"You're more than welcome to stay as well," Charles says. "Either in Moira's apartment, again, or in one of the spare rooms on the fourth floor." He does not add, _And you're always welcome in my bed._ He doesn't want to seem desperate. He's not even sure it's true, though he fears that's only because he knows it _shouldn't_ be true, rather than any actual internal conflict.

"That's not what I meant," Erik says. He leans back against the chair. "A sleepover with the other children," he says conversationally. "I can't imagine that ends well for you."

Sleepovers are not, precisely, what Charles wants to talk about with Erik, but he's desperate enough to cling to whatever scraps he's thrown.

"They're all quite young, still," Charles says. "Even gathered together with sleeping bags and snacks, I have a feeling they wouldn't even be able to make midnight. The power went out a month or two ago, during a particularly bad storm, and we let them gather together and sleep in the living room with a fire going and most of them were asleep not long after their actual bedtime. As we add more students to the school, I imagine evenings like that will be a thing of the past, but for the moment, with only five students, it's quite homey."

"More students," Erik says. "You've your recruitment underway, then."

"I don't know that I would use that word," Charles says. He treads carefully, reminding himself that the man sitting in front of him, rubbing his temples and looking like any other weary parent, is also on the opposite side in a war he's working to instigate against Charles' will. "I'm not building a team any longer, but filling a school. Some of it is targeted enrollment, some of it is word of mouth, some of it is suggestions from people I know who know what it is we do here. We're on the way to having another eight in the fall, with a large enough age spread to break into two class groups."

He's showing too much of his hand, he thinks, but Erik--who has children of his own--won't come after the school. Charles doesn't know that the same would be true of Erik's followers, but much like he doesn't think the rest of Erik's Brotherhood knows precisely where Wanda and Pietro disappear to, he doesn't think Erik is likely to spill Charles' secrets, either.

"Hm," Erik says. Charles has never wanted to look into his mind so badly.

"I'm hoping to pick up another teacher or two as well," Charles continues. "Hank and I have math and the sciences covered and Armando was slowly making his way through his literature BA before we picked him up in New York, but Sean is only just eighteen now and Alex is brilliant when it comes to helping the children with their abilities, but not more academically minded. I'd like a history teacher at the very least, but even more would be wonderful. We'll need to up the staff, too."

"All of those people keeping your secrets," Erik says, but there's no bite in it, or even any challenge. He says it with something closer to wonder, shaking his head. 

Wanda stirs, drawing both their attention, but she doesn't wake, merely twitches and sighs and repositions herself slightly on Charles' lap. 

"That can't be comfortable," Erik say quietly. Charles is about to agree and marvel at the resiliency of little bodies to fall asleep in any position, when he looks up and catches Erik's eye.

Erik's not talking about Wanda. He's talking about Charles.

It's the first time he's mentioned Charles' injury. Period. In the year and a half since Cuba, he's continued to treat Charles as if nothing has changed. While Charles appreciates that--it was a habit he had to train the boys into over time--he thinks that Erik is, perhaps, the one person with whom he really does need to discuss his injury. He doesn't blame Erik, not really, not entirely, not any more than he blames himself, but it's a conversation they should have, eventually.

Maybe not tonight. The fact that Erik is acknowledging it is good enough for now.

"Not really," Charles says. He aims for casual. "The loss of sensation starts here--" He indicates the spot with his hand, although it's hard to be exact when he's sitting on the couch covered in children. "I can't feel her weight at all. I'm probably the ideal storytime lap for sleepy children, if you think about it."

Charles smiles. Erik does not, though he looks more thoughtful than upset. 

"If you'd help me move them, though, I can get up and get you a coffee or a glass of wine," Charles says. "I am a bit trapped if I don't want to wake them."

He holds his breath. There's a chance that Erik will say it's too much of a bother, will wake the children up and take them home instead. But the night has been falling in Charles' favor so far, and he can't help his instinct to push it just a little farther, to be a little greedy with his and Erik's time together, brief as it always is, distant as it always is. He's slowly adjusting to the idea that it will never be what it was--Erik doesn't love him anymore, not the way he did, and he'll accept that one day. That doesn't mean their friendship is destroyed as well. It doesn't have to be. Charles just needs to prove it.

The stars align in his favor tonight. Erik gets to his feet and approaches the sofa, eyeing the children dubiously. Charles gently puts a hand under Wanda's head and Erik catches on quickly, lifting her body off the sofa long enough to turn and place her down on the matching loveseat, so she's not resting her weight on Charles any longer. 

Charles turns his head to regard Pietro, smushed up against his side, and one of Erik's hands slides between Charles' side and Pietro's head. He lifts him as well, moving him to the loveseat next to his sister, but when Charles looks up, though, Erik isn't looking at Pietro.

He takes three cautious steps back towards the sofa and leans over again, one hand propped on the back of the couch over Charles' shoulder, the other on Charles' hip, right above the spot Charles had illustrated before, above where Charles' nerve endings go numb. His fingers spread out against Charles' side, warm through his thin button-down shirt and the t-shirt beneath it. 

Charles swallows. "What--what are you--" he starts to say, and immediately curses himself. He shouldn't be wasting time with questions, he doesn't _care_ about questions, Erik's hands are on his body again, Erik is touching him, Erik is staring at him like he's precious. He never thought he'd have this again, even for a second, and he's about to ruin it with _questions_.

Or maybe not ruin it. Erik is still touching him, still staring at him.

"I don't know," Erik says softly. His fingers curl. He's not just touching Charles, now, he's holding him, leaning forward, and Charles makes sure his emotions are reined in, that he's not broadcasting any of the shock or fear or frantic elation, and tilts his head up to meet Erik in a kiss.

It becomes harder to keep from broadcasting after that.

It's sweet, almost shy at first, Erik's mouth opening against his tentatively. Nervous, Erik is nervous, Charles can tell even without delving into his mind. His other hand comes up to cup Charles' cheek and Charles sighs into the kiss and holds Erik's face in his hands. That turns the tide--the next kiss is more insistent, more impatient. Erik's grip on Charles tightens and his weight shifts. He's leaning on the couch, now, adjusting his stance so he can kiss Charles again and again, hold him tighter, pin him against the couch and bruise his lips. Charles feels lightheaded and shattered, feels torn apart, torn open, exposed--he loves this, he's missed this, he never expected this, certainly never expected Erik's care, his desperation. He never imagined Erik could be desperate for him again and he never wants to let him go, except, maybe, to move to the bedroom so as not to further disturb the children.

Before he can suggest that, however, Wanda stirs again. She doesn't wake, though she catches their attention as she curls into a ball, shifting on the loveseat in her sleep. Charles turns back to Erik, grinning, a change of venue on the tip of his tongue, but Erik's not smiling.

Erik looks angry.

"Erik--?" he starts to ask, but Erik staggers back, away.

"No," he says. "I--no!"

Charles stares. He can't do anything else.

"Erik," he says again, but Erik's already grabbing Pietro and Wanda.

"Children! Wake up!" he shouts. "We're going. Now!"

"Don't take this out on them!" Charles says, though he still doesn't know what exactly it is that Erik's taking out on them. He doesn't know what happened--things were so perfect a moment ago, and he fumbles to move down the couch towards his chair. Erik already has Wanda by the arm. She's on the verge of tears, too tired to register anything but her father's anger as he shakes Pietro and pulls him up as well. "Erik, calm down and think about--"

"Stay out of this!" Erik snaps. He has Pietro up now, too, and Wanda starts to cry as he drags them both away by their arms, stumbling across the carpet. "They're not your children and I don't want them coming here again!"

"Erik!" Charles shouts and curses his shaking hands. He bungles his first attempt at a chair transfer as Wanda and Pietro's sobs echo through the halls. He curses himself, first in his mind, but then shouting, "Shit!" as he slowly manages his way back into the wheelchair and unlocks his wheels, racing towards the front of the house.

He makes the front door just in time to see the taillights of Erik's appropriated car disappearing down the driveway. There's no way he'll catch up.

Erik's mind is gone again--a blank spot in the shape of Shaw's helmet. The children are upset, their minds discordant and scared. He does his best to soothe them as they get further and further from him, calm their anxieties and smooth over their minds.

His final gift to them, it seems.

"Fuck," he murmurs. The obscenity feels good, an expulsion of some of the frustration blurring his vision. " _Fuck,_ " he says again.

Hank is the first to reach him in the wake of the disturbance, though Armando and Alex aren't far behind.

"Charles--" Hank starts to say, but Charles holds up a hand to stop him without bothering to turn around. He's still staring out the open door.

"I'm fine, Hank," he says. His voice is even, miraculously. 

"Was that--" Hank tries to ask.

"I don't think think Wanda and Pietro will be paying us any more visits after all," Charles says.

The silence hangs heavy in the hall. Charles can feel an invective on the tip of Alex's tongue, but he can also feel the moment Armando quells him with a look.

"Do you want to talk?" Armando asks.

"I'm fine," Charles lies. "I would like a moment or two to myself, I think. We'll talk about what it means for the school at the staff meeting on Friday morning."

"Are you sure?" Hank asks, but before Charles can insist, Armando is herding both of the others back out of the room.

Good. Charles is going to need to turn around in order to retreat back to his office and he'd prefer if the boys didn't see the broken look on his face.

Charles loved Erik--loves Erik still, damn him, probably always will--but more than that, he's grown so fond of Wanda and Pietro. He's enjoyed spending time with them, teaching them, watching them have fun with the students at the school. He allowed himself to imagine a future where he was a part of their lives, a respected older figure willing to tell the them things about the world their father is certain to hold back, assuring them that there's good in the world, there's beauty, there are people fighting for what's right, even in the wake of ugliness and inequality. 

He wants them to have something better than Erik had. He wants this for all of the children yes, but these children in particular, these children whose father grew up unfamiliar with hope. He doesn't want that for them any more than he would ever have wanted it for Erik. 

He waits until he's sure that the boys are gone and then retreats back to his study. He should go up to his room, given the exhaustion that's weighing down his limbs, but he wants a drink badly. He pours himself a tumbler once the door is locked behind him and drinks it quickly. Despair is starting to abandon him, urged on by the first heat of liquor in his veins. He's not upset any longer, he's angry.

Damn Erik. Even his bloody rage is impossible to ignore.

All he wanted to do was help Erik. All he wanted to do was provide for Erik's children. Was that not good enough? Was that not what Erik wanted? All he wants for all children is acceptance, a chance to learn and live and be themselves, but heaven forbid Erik's children see even a taste of optimism. Like his sister, like his lover, like his independent mobility, Erik has stolen this from him, too.

He wants to kick something, to hit a wall, to slam a door, but that's another thing Erik's taken from him, an outlet for this anger, the ability to lash out and let it out and move on. There's no more stomping through his excess adrenaline, now it's all careful movements, clearing paths, calling ahead to make sure the restaurant can accommodate him and it's all so _frustrating_ , it's easier to stay in, stay calm, stay smiling, and let his life and his personality and his temper be another casualty of Erik's destruction.

Not tonight, though. Tonight he wants to pull the world apart. He wants to scream, but he swallows it down. It tastes like bile. His hands are shaking and he wheels himself angrily to his desk, seething and finally lashing out, sweeping everything swiftly to the floor in a flutter of paper and the tinkling of shattered glass. It's a stupid decision--rolling over it is going to be slow going and dangerous. 

He doesn't care. He'd do it again if he could. He wishes he could. He wishes he could pull the walls down around him, knock it all down, crush it beneath his hands until this desire passes, this need to find an outlet for the resentment Erik left behind.

He tried so hard not to hang his hopes on Erik again. He tried to keep his dreams to himself, but he should have known better. He should have known his heart had its own plans where Erik was concerned.

He sighs. The anger is draining out of him, little by little, replaced by humiliation. He needs to clean up, but the prospect seems too daunting. Instead, he retreats, abandoning the study, the mess, the spectre of what happened, and turning instead towards the elevator.

Maybe things will look better in the morning. He doubts it, but, regardless, tomorrow he'll need to pick up the pieces of his life and his heart for the second time, and it's best to do that on a full night's sleep.

***

The first week is difficult--Charles stretches the closest net of his telepathy, the one that registers identity in addition to presence, out to the edges of the property at all times and further into the town when he's alone. He hopes every child who passes by him is Pietro or Wanda, but of course, it never is. He explains to the children that Wanda and Pietro will not be coming back and comforts Jean through her sudden and unexpected tears. He wishes he had answers for them. He can't help but think back to Wanda's questions about her father's temperament, can't help but want to say to the children, "Their father is mean, and that's why they've gone away," but he's the adult and no matter how hurt he is, he knows someone needs to be mature about this.

He has one brief conversation in private with Armando, who is cleaning up the last of the detritus on the floor of Charles' office when Charles comes down the morning after Erik's flight from the school.

"Let me know if you need anything," Armando tells him. "Even if what you need is someone to complain to."

Charles appreciates it. He appreciates even more the fact that Armando diffuses any hot tempers in the other boys, keeping them from mentioning Erik to Charles at all. Charles briefly touches upon Erik at that week's staff meeting--that Erik will not be returning to the school, that Charles doesn't see this as a security threat at the moment, but he'll reassess and they should brainstorm new security protocols just in case. In the past, he had resisted efforts to protect against Erik, sure as he was that Erik wouldn't hurt him. Now he takes a sort of vindictive pleasure in imagining the look on Erik's face when he tries unsuccessfully to enter the school. Charles won't ever enact new security protocols to keep Erik out--of that he's almost positive--but the fantasy gives him a few minutes respite from feeling like a fool.

The second week is easier. He falls back into the pattern of teaching. He takes a weekend trip with Alex and Armando to talk to a woman in Vermont who can cause temporary invisibility by touch and who currently teaches civics at a junior high school. Charles thinks of Erik only once during the trip, when Alex and Armando retreat into their hotel room, bringing back, unbidden, the memories of all the similar nights he spent with Erik as they did their own brand of recruiting. 

But the woman agrees to join them in the fall, and that's something. A real teacher, and a woman at that. Moira will be proud of him.

He gets to tell Moira in person in week three, when she drops in with two more names of children whose CIA files S.H.I.E.L.D., her employer since January, conveniently "borrowed" before they could make their way high enough to put the children in danger. He means to tell her only about the new teacher, but ends up spending the night in her apartment, making his way through a bottle of wine as he tells her, in fits and starts, about Erik's children, Erik's visits, Erik's latest abandonment. She swears at him rather more than he'd like, but she's a sympathetic ear nonetheless and it feels good to say it all to someone else. It feels good not to have to lie to her about any of it.

By week four, he's back, more or less, to normal. Teaching, searching for more mutant children and mutant teachers, playing with the children, training with the boys, and thinking of Wanda and Pietro and Erik only during his private moments, alone and resigned, but no longer raw.

So that is, of course, when it all goes to hell.

***

It's after hours, but not quite bedtime. The children are putting on pajamas and brushing their teeth, while Alex oversees them. Hank is in his lab. Sean is watching television in the den. Armando is making himself a snack in the kitchen.

Charles is in his study, drinking a glass of wine and reading one of the books Armando recommended, when the edge of his psychic net--retracted back to the perimeter of the school, now--flares brightly with two familiar minds. 

He drops the book and sits up straighter. Pietro's mutation gives him only a moment to collect himself before he hears the front door slam open.

 _In the office,_ he tells them before they have a chance to shout for him. They're upset--they're terribly upset, frightened and crying, and when they rush into the office, the door slamming open behind them, he can see they're in their pajamas and look as though they've been woken from sleep.

"Charles!" Pietro says. Wanda throws herself into his lap, crying.

"We missed you!" she sobs. "Papa wouldn't let us come! We wanted to come back and see you and Jean and everyone, but Papa wouldn't let us!"

Charles strokes her hair and hugs her and manages to say, "Where's Papa now?" without his voice shaking.

"We don't know!" Pietro says. "Some men came and there was shouting and it woke us up and Papa came and found us and told us to come here and not tell anyone at home."

He tries not to be pleased that, for all that might have happened between the two of them, Erik still thinks of the mansion as the safest place for his children. He sends a quick alert out to the boys-- _Something's happened to Erik, Wanda and Pietro are here and upset_ \--and then begins to formulate a plan in his head.

He swallows down his damnable fear for Erik and says, "It's okay. You're here now. It's safe here, and I'm sure Papa will be by to come and get you soon. In the meantime, how would you like to have a sleepover with the other children?"

Wanda is hesitant to leave Charles' side, but he can tell the moment she thinks of Jean.

"Okay," she says quietly.

"We'll get some blankets and pillows," Charles says. "And all the kids can come down into the living room and sleep there and it will be like a sleepover party."

He transmits that plan to the boys and then leads the children to the living room. Sean is already pushing couches out of the way, and before long, Armando appears with his arms full of blankets and pillows. Soon, Alex is leading the other children into the living room and Jean and Wanda are hugging and squealing and everyone starts talking, which helps Wanda and Pietro forget their fright.

While they're distracted, while everyone is distracted and busy, Charles slips into their minds, one at a time. The details are much like Pietro explained, and neither he nor his sister got a clear look at the danger. They heard noise, raised voices, too distant in sleep for them to make out the words, and then Erik appeared. He had a fresh cut on his face, over his eye, and he looked terrified as he told them to flee. _Go to Charles. Go now and don't look back. Stay there until I come for you. Go!_

In the living room, the tone is set by the children, cheerful and excited. In the hall, where the boys are joining him--one eye on the open door--it's much more severe.

"Erik's in trouble," Charles says quietly. "Someone came after his people."

"Are we supposed to be sorry about that?" Alex asks. "That's what happens when you go around provoking people."

"I don't disagree, Alex," Charles says, rubbing his forehead, "but as it stands, those children were there when it happened and I've no idea when to tell them their father will return for them."

Silence.

"What should we do?" Sean finally asks.

"Be cheerful?" Charles suggests. "Act as if nothing's wrong? Help them with anything you can, and hope that Erik is soon able to return."

None of them particularly like that answer, Charles can see, not even Armando, but Alex, Armando, and Sean return to the living room without complaint and Hank heads back towards his lab. Charles watches the children through the open door for some time before retreating back to his study.

He sits at his desk and closes his eyes, reaching out as far as he can, wishing the second Cerebro model was ready for his use.

 _Erik? Erik!_ he calls into the void, feeling out across the country, straining himself as far as he can reach, looking for even a flicker of Erik, the narrowest hope that even if he's been captured, perhaps they've removed the helmet.

Nothing. He's met with nothing but silence.

***

The children are, as predicted, asleep before midnight. Charles feels them nod off, one after the other, as he sits up waiting for Erik. It's not long before Sean retires as well, then Alex and Armando, and by two even Hank is turning off the lights in his lab.

Charles eyes the clock warily.

He's exhausted. He should sleep. Erik will be able to find him just as easily upstairs in the bedroom as he would in the study. 

But does he want Erik in his bedroom? Would Erik dare approach? What's to stop Erik from sneaking in and taking his children and fleeing again without even stopping to thank Charles?

He gives in to his desire to sleep before long. Erik will do what Erik pleases, regardless of what room Charles is in and whether or not he's awake. He checks on the children one last time, then takes the elevator up to his bedroom. Once he's finished his nightly routine and he's safely in bed, he tries one more time to sweep the area for a whisper of Erik, only to be met with silence.

He sleeps fitfully and wakes frequently, disoriented each time he opens his eyes. The sky is just fading into morning, light creeping through the grey, when he wakes for the final time. He is, initially, planning on trying to go back to sleep, when he realizes why he's woken up.

Erik is downstairs.

He dresses as quickly as he can manage, pulling on a dressing gown and slippers with his heart racing, forcing himself to take care as he transfers from bed to wheelchair. He races down the hall to the elevator, hoping that none of this will spook Erik, that the movement of the chair and the elevator in the still house won't startle him into running again.

Charles, breathless, finds Erik standing in the doorway to the living room, staring at the children sprawled in piles of blankets across the rug.

"Good morning," he says to Charles without turning around.

"Good morning," Charles says, struggling not to gasp for breath as the last of the adrenaline begins to burn out of his system. Erik doesn't offer any further reply, and Charles flounders for something more to say, strives to put words to his anger and embarrassment and disappointment. He's spent weeks mourning Erik again, feeling the weight of Erik's abandonment, nursing the wounds of more broken trust.

What he says is, "Will you be staying for breakfast?"

Erik makes a small, amused noise. 

"You think you've won, Charles," he says. "You think--just because I send my children to you when they're in danger doesn't mean they need you to be safe. It doesn't mean they need your way of doing things to protect them. This isn't a concession. You've already made it clear we don't want the same things."

The words echo in his head and charles swallows and remembers the hyperbright blue and gold and grey of the beach in Cuba, drenched in a haze of pain. He can't get it out of his head for an endless second and then he's through it, pushing it back down to the recesses of his mind where it normally lives, the pain and fear and despair mere memories. He doesn't have time to relive it right now, not when he thinks Erik may explode at any moment. 

The last thing he wants to do is wake the children, but he's not sure what to do. If he suggests a change of venue, it might be enough to set Erik off. If he calmly tries to diffuse the situation, it might make things worse.

He turns in the chair and wheels towards his study without saying a word, hoping that Erik wants an audience for his anger, hoping that he needs to shout at Charles specifically rather than the first person who crosses his path. It takes a moment--a very long moment in which Charles is certain that Erik won't follow--but Erik crosses the hall quickly enough and strides away from the living room, just a few paces behind Charles.

What Charles would really like is a cup of tea and some toast. What Charles would really like is a brandy. What he does instead is pivot around--quite an impressive looking trick that it took him an age to learn to do fluidly--and stare up at Erik, jaw set.

"It's not a _contest_!" he snaps. "There is no _winner_! I'm not trying to _beat you_ at anything!"

"Then you're an idiot!" Erik says. "It's us against them, Charles! The humans are out to exterminate us, to capture us, to _experiment on us_. They want to eliminate us and this is your response? To hide away from the world? To take a handful and wrap them in cotton wool, when the very fate of our kind is at stake?"

Erik is shaking with rage, his face red, his hands clenched into fists. He's not leaving, though. He could use this as an excuse to flee, but he's still standing here, shouting at Charles, and that has to count for something.

"That's not it at all," Charles manages to say, but Erik keeps going.

"This is not the answer!" he shouts. "We can't sit idly by and let them exterminate us!"

"I don't intend to!" Charles snaps.

"I gave you a chance! I gave you a chance to join me and you _left me_ for this!" He gestures around the office. "Hiding away! Letting them destroy us and doing _nothing_!"

"I am not _doing nothing_!" Charles bellows, and it's loud enough that Erik's mouth snaps shut and Charles briefly worries about the sleeping children down the hall. It's a fleeting thought, though, because he's so angry--too angry to worry about anyone but himself. "I am _protecting them_! They are _children_ and i'm not about to march them out on your bloody battlefield! I can't believe you would put your own children into that danger! 'Hiding away,' my god, Erik, do you listen to yourself talk? Do you--I left you? I wasn't the one who bloody _left_ , Erik! I wasn't the one who walked away to pursue a half-assed war that doesn't even make any _sense_! I wasn't the one who jumped blindly into a cause I barely understand, could barely _comprehend_ and left everyone who depended on me alone to fend for themselves!"

Erik is breathing hard, his fists clenched, but he doesn't interrupt. Charles doesn't let him, barrelling on, his words tumbling over each other in their haste to get out, all of the vitriol he's stored up, all of the anger and heartbreak that he buried under work and mentoring and starting his school. His hands shake. He keeps talking.

"And I let you go!" he says. "I let you run off to have your little war because I thought it was for the greater good! I thought it was for the best that I let you go and focus on my own work, that if you didn't want to be a part of it, then it was best to make a clean break, but no!" He slams his palms against his thighs and Erik winces, but doesn't speak and covers up his abortive move towards Charles. It just makes Charles angrier. Erik gave up his right to care for Charles months ago. Erik stopped caring months ago, and yet, here he is again.

"You come here for refuge, you send your children here, you play chess with me and you talk with me and you tell your children this is a safe place and then you shout at me!" Charles continues. "You insult me! You _reject me_! You let me think--and god, I really did. I thought, maybe this time, maybe now that we know where we stand--I thought we could at least be friends and then that night I really thought I wasn't alone in this. But it's just circles and circles of _fighting_! What do you _want_ from me?"

HIs voice cracks on the last word, his breath coming so quickly he almost can't catch it. Erik is staring at him, frowning with something more than anger, something more like frustration. He's taken a step back from Charles, his posture more defensive than aggressive.

Charles supposes he was shouting quite a bit.

"What do you want from me?" Charles repeats quietly, his voice hoarse. "Just, please, tell me what we're doing."

Maybe it's his tone or his volume or the obvious desperation behind his words, but Erik's entire posture changes. His shoulders slump and the fury goes out of him.

"I don't know," he says. He covers his face with his hands. "I don't know what I'm doing any longer."

When he looks up, there's a defeat in his eyes, a distress to the tilt of his mouth that makes Charles feel like a cad, even if his tirade was well-deserved. The remaining anger turns over into resignation and exhaustion. 

"Come sit down with me," he says softly. Erik hesitates for just a moment. Without his rage and gravitas, he looks hunched over and pale, slightly ill and filthy and shaking.

He looks tired.

He sits down in the armchair in front of Charles' desk and Charles moves next to him, close enough to hold his hand, though he doesn't dare.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Erik repeats. "I thought--everything was so clear that day, the weeks after, and then the children...." He trails off. He won't look at Charles, rather, he's staring into the middle distance. "You're right, I'm putting them in danger. I can't be a father to them and live like this. I thought I could manage both. I thought if I kept them safe, kept our headquarters secret, they could live their lives there without being exposed to what we do, but there's always going to be someone after us. We're always going to be on the run. And the way they speak of their visits here...." He turns and focuses on Charles. "I was wrong, before. You _have_ won."

Charles thought it would feel good to beat Erik, to show him he was wrong. It doesn't. He just feels as tired as Erik looks.

"I haven't," Charles says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We're not--it's not a game or a contest. We're not even in the same arena, Erik. You're trying to build an army and I'm trying to build a family, and that's where we differ. I think that's where we've always differed."

"Except I have a family now," Erik says. "A family I can't even manage to take care of."

"You've always had a family, Erik." This, Charles can say with certainty. He restrains himself from taking Erik's hand, from squeezing his forearm, from adding some sort of physical contact to drive home the truth of that. "We have always been your family. And we always will be, as long as you'll have us."

There's a heaviness to the moment, something significant that Charles can feel sitting between them. Erik's expression is unreadable and his eyes are alight and Charles wants to kiss him, but he can't. Erik's body language is screaming for it, even Charles, terrible as he is at reading people, can tell, but he's made that mistake once already. He's not doing it again. He doesn't know that he can stand another rejection.

"Your children are welcome too, of course," he says, clearing his throat and looking away. He can still feel Erik's gaze on him. "I like having them here. I want them here. I want them to know...." He wonders how best to phrase it, the philosophy of the school, how to say it without offending Erik's reliance on violence to prove his point. "There are two ways of looking at the world. You can see the imperfect world, the fact that life isn't fair, and give up on everything or you can see those things and strive to change it for the better. Focus on the good and on making the good better. And while, of course, I try to emphasize that I would like them to work on positive change, what's really important to me--the message that I want all of them to take away is that we need to acknowledge that the world can be hard and difficult, but through it all, this is a place that will always welcome them. Sometimes doing good isn't easy and they will certainly be met with resistance, but regardless of what they do, this is a place they can come, we are people they can call to help. They're free to make their own choices, and that no matter what they choose to pursue, the school and the people here will always be there for them."

And then, of course, after months of saying this in meetings, after weeks of gently working it into lessons and saying it outright to his students, he flashes back to nearly exactly a year ago, to bobbing in the warm water off the coast of Miami, to insisting to Erik, fervently, with all his heart, _You are not alone_.

"I don't want anyone to think they're alone," he adds quietly. "Not anymore."

Erik's still not said anything, but his gaze is sharp, hooking into Charles, crawling under his skin. He's babbled enough to fill the silence already, but he has to stop himself from saying more, from prattling on about the structure of classes, the one-on-one tutoring where he and the staff encourage the children to open up about their hesitations and fears, the plans for expansion. He bites his lip to keep from speaking, still watching and waiting for Erik to respond.

He has only a split second to react after he recognizes the look on Erik's face and realizes Erik is about to lean forward and kiss him. God, he wants it. He wants to let Erik do whatever he wants and damn the consequences, but that's exactly what he thought last time and it took him weeks to mend his heart.

He raises his hand, just as Erik begins to move forward, and places it gently over Erik's mouth.

"You don't want this," Charles says, though the words tear him apart. Erik stares at him, surprised, frozen in place. "I wish you did, but I know--every time I get close, you pull away. You don't really want this."

Erik takes Charles' hand, pries it away from his mouth and holds it in his own. He looks miserable.

"I don't know what this is," Erik says. "I hurt you. I destroyed you and now here we are and I don't recognize any of this. I don't know what I'm doing. We're not the same people."

"I'm not destroyed," Charles says. Best to lead with that as he sorts out the rest. "I'm...well, not fine, but fine enough. The thing of it is...I don't think we fully understood each other. I don't think we talked about what we wanted for the world. And we didn't want the same thing, not philosophically, but that doesn't mean--Erik, I didn't stop loving you because we had a difference of opinion."

"No," Erik says, "You stopped because I crippled you."

Charles swallows. "No," he says. "I didn't stop for that, either. Erik, I never stopped. I rather think I never will."

It's not something he planned on revealing, certainly not to Erik, who has been so fickle and careless and dismissive, so distant. But even that's not true--there were moments of intimacy between them still, moments they were themselves, together, relaxed and happy. It wasn't quite like it had been, but it wasn't just a series of hasty retreats by Erik. There was feeling there, too, which just made the rejection worse.

Erik's not rejecting him now. Not yet. He's staring again, quiet, his mind whirring just below the surface. He's still holding Charles' hand.

"Things have changed," he says finally. "You've changed. So have I. I don't recognize you, sometimes. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don't recognize myself. It was foolish enough when I knew you, when I knew what was happening. I can't predict I won't hurt you again, and with Wanda and Pietro--things are more complicated. I can't complicate them further." He pauses. With a hesitancy that's always foreign from Erik, he adds, "No matter how much I want to."

He releases Charles' hand and brushes his temple, the arch of his cheekbone. His movements are so soft that Charles barely feels them, as if he's afraid of hurting Charles further, breaking him if he presses too hard. 

It's hard to breathe with Erik touching him like this, but if they can ever hope to repair their relationship--and Charles does hope, now, foolishly and whole-heartedly--they need to have this conversation. He can't rush into something, not again. Erik's right--there are children involved now. It's more than just the two of them, shouting and crying at each other, embarrassingly public in the midst of a larger battle. This isn't the time for speaking without thinking or lashing out in pain or embarrassment.

He takes Erik's hand back, already able to breathe easier, to concentrate, without the feather-soft touches on his cheek. He holds Erik's hand in both of his own and squeezes it.

"I can't predict I won't hurt you, either," Charles tells him. "I know I hurt you before. You wouldn't be so angry otherwise. But no one has the luxury of a crystal ball--at least, not that we've met so far. There's no way for anyone to know they won't hurt the people they love. It happens every day and, every day, people work through it. They apologize and they talk and they move on. Isn't that what we're doing here?"

"It's different," Erik says, but he doesn't pull away. "Wanda and Pietro--not to mention, we're on different sides of a revolution."

Charles refrains from the dismissive snort that would no doubt end this conversation immediately.

"It's not that different," Charles says. "You said yourself, as long as Wanda and Pietro are in your care, you need to rethink your methods. I'm not saying you should give up your dreams. I'm saying...let your children come to school here. Let them be with other children. Let them learn math and science and where they came from. Take the time to think about where you stand and what you would change about your tactics now that you have children to watch out for. And, if, at the end of that process, there's room for me in your life...." He forces himself to maintain eye contact, to hold Erik's gaze, as much as he wants to look away. "There will always be room for you in mine. There are parts of you I still recognize. With everything else around us different and new, I think that's more the reason to stick together, don't you? And the parts I don't recognize--I have a lifetime to re-learn them."

With Charles' hands occupied, there's nothing to hold Erik back from leaning forward and kissing him.

It's a short kiss--chaste and almost gentle. When Erik pulls back, it's only far enough to rest his forehead against Charles'. His eyes remain closed.

"I need to think," he says. "The children--I want them to stay. I want them to go to school. I need to know they're safe and cared for, that they're being educated about who they are. But I don't know that I--my people are out there, still. I'm their leader. I don't know that I can't walk away for the next eleven years, but I don't have a choice, do I?"

"It's up to you," Charles says. He closes his own eyes and takes a shaking breath, overwhelmed with the relief that floods him. Wanda and Pietro will be allowed to stay. He wants Erik to stay too--he wants Erik to stay forever--but even if he leaves, at least the children will be safe. "I won't force you to stay--their acceptance at the school is not contingent on you being here. But--well, I would like you to stay, if that's what you want."

"I don't know what I want," Erik admits.

"Take as much time as you need," Charles says. "You can stay in Moira's apartment again. You don't even have to see me. I'll leave you alone to--"

Erik kisses him again.

"I need to think," he repeats when he pulls back, and his time Charles remains silent, huddled in their near embrace, the buzz of Erik's thoughts tantalizingly close, the sound of their breathing filling Charles' ears.

It's Ororo who breaks the spell, knocking on the door to the office, maybe five minutes, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe five hours later. Charles pulls back and releases Erik's hand slowly. He hopes it's clear he's not pulling away out of anything other than a need to see to one of his students. 

"Come in, Ororo," he says, and the door swings open. Ororo rushes over to him with far more energy than Charles can handle this early in the morning, especially after so heavy a conversation.

"All the other kids are sleeping," she says. "I'm hungry. Darwin said he'd make pancakes!" 

"Darwin is still asleep, darling," Charles says as Ororo climbs into his lap. "But, while we're waiting for him to wake up, I think we can manage to find some grapes in the kitchen. Why don't we--"

"I can make pancakes."

Ororo peers curiously over Charles' shoulder at Erik. Charles himself is too shocked to speak, at first. Erik loved to cook, when he was living here last. At first, Charles thought he was asking for kitchen duty because it gave him solitude, but it was obvious he took enjoyment from it as well. 

Charles tries not to look at this as a sign of Erik's future intentions.

"Who are you?" Ororo asks.

"This is Mr. Lehnsherr," Charles says. "He's Wanda and Pietro's father."

"You came and played baseball with us once," Ororo says, kneeling on Charles' thighs and leaning heavily over his shoulder to converse with Erik. "I like Wanda, she's nice. Pietro is dumb."

"Ororo!" Charles says, shocked. "That's very rude!"

"It's true!" Ororo says. "He cheats at Go Fish and he called me a baby!"

Charles scrambles for an excuse, but, rather than getting angry, Erik chuckles before Charles can say anything.

"I find that unsurprising," he says. "Still, Pietro's bad behavior doesn't prevent me from making pancakes."

"Erik, no," Charles manages to say once he's reoriented himself to the conversation. "You've been out all night, up to god knows what. You're filthy and exhausted. Why don't you have a shower and rest? I can certainly entertain Ororo until Armando gets up to make breakfast."

"I won't be able to rest until I see to the twins," Erik says. "I might as well make myself useful." He runs a hand through his hair and winces, just as Charles readjusts his position to better see him. "Well, maybe I'll take you up on that shower."

"Upstairs," Charles says, and allows himself the smallest of hopeful smiles. "You know the way."

"I do," Erik agrees. He stands and stretches, then heads for the door. He hesitates, though, next to Charles' chair. For a moment, he stands there, hand halfway raised, but otherwise unmoving. Then, between one breath and the next, he quickly, awkwardly squeezes Charles' shoulder and then retreats. 

Charles has to clear his throat twice before he can speak.

"Why don't we go to the kitchen and make a fruit salad while we're waiting for Erik to make pancakes?" he says. 

"Fruit salad!" Ororo cheers. She jumps off his lap and skips to the hall. "Come on, Professor!"

Dazed and still fighting both a smile and the creeping sensation of hope, Charles follows her to the kitchen.

***

Erik is barely fifteen minutes, appearing in the kitchen clean and neatly dressed in one of the outfits he left behind. It's jarring to see him in a turtleneck and slacks, though it's been less than a year since he began donning his uniform. It's barely been a year since they first met. It's strange how quickly and totally one person can change your life.

It doesn't take him long to prepare pancake batter, amidst pointed comments about how well-stocked the kitchen is, harkening back to embarrassingly bare cabinets that were a hallmark of their time training together. The world's not on fire, now. Charles has time to send the boys on regular grocery runs, to set up a kitchen rota to ensure nutritious meals are being prepared for his students every day.

It's also, Charles realizes, the first time he gets a real glimpse of what Erik must be like as a father. The rest of the house is still sleeping, but Ororo is up and sitting on the counter near the stove, her usual perch when it's Armando or Alex making breakfast. Erik has not only allowed her observation, but is actively engaging with her as he pours batter onto the pan over and over again.

"We don't want to touch it," he says to her as they watch the pale circle on the skillet. "You see how the bubbles are fighting their way to the top? Once they pop, and the edges aren't shiny any longer, that's when we flip. If we touch it before, we ruin it."

"Can we eat the ruined ones?" Ororo asks with what Charles assumes she thinks is an entirely innocent voice.

"They won't be very good," Erik tells her. She pouts and he adds, fighting a smile, "Perhaps we can test one of the good ones before the others get up."

"Yay!" Ororo says. "I like you, are you going to be a new teacher?"

Erik hesitates. He looks to Charles, his mouth half open, and then back to Ororo.

"I don't know," he finally says.

"Okay," Ororo says, moving on quickly as she's apt to do. She points at the skillet. "That one's not shiny any longer!"

Erik returns quickly to his task, with no small amount of relief, and Charles tries not to let himself read into the hesitation. Erik would certainly make a fine teacher. He was an excellent trainer the first time around, and a wonderful mentor to students who needed a slightly different approach from Charles' affable genality. 

No. He can't let himself think about that. Erik needs time. Charles is going to give him that, at the very least.

As Erik works, Charles feels the stirring of minds above them. Before long, Alex and Armando are trudging down the stairs. He wonders, fleetingly, if he should warn them. He doesn't know what he could even say, what he should say, and before long it's moot. Alex walks into the kitchen, yawning and half asleep, and stops short when he sees who's at the stove. Armando crashes into his back.

"What the fuck?" Alex says. Ororo gasps. "Sorry, kiddo. It's just--did we go back in time or something?" The last part is directed at Armando, through a confused, sleepy squint. 

"Good to see you, man," Armando says, ignoring Alex. "When I smelled the pancakes, I was afraid Charles was trying to cook again." He nods at Erik and Erik nods back--something passes between them that Charles doesn't quite catch. Nor does Alex, based on the boggling look he's still giving Armando.

"But he's--" he starts to say, but Armando pushes him gently towards the table. 

"Let's sit down and eat while it's still warm," Armando says. "And before the kids wake up and dive in."

Alex doesn't look placated, exactly, but he sits without another word, sliding down a chair to make room for Ororo, who's hopped down from the counter and thrown herself at Armando.

"Darwin, Mr. Lehnsherr made pancakes and he showed me how and the Professor and I made fruit salad," she says. 

"Then I'm sure it's gonna be the best fruit salad I ever tasted," Armando assures her, lifting her up to sit at the table between Alex and himself.

"I dunno, Moira pours white wine over hers," Alex says, gaining his equilibrium back, even as Armando reaches over Ororo to gently punch his arm.

Alex is right--it really does seem that they've all gone back in time.

It's not long before Charles begins to feel the quietly waking minds of the rest of the inhabitants of the house: the children in the den slowly rousing, Hank sleepily reaching for the pencil he keeps near his bedside to jot down an idea, Sean squeezing his eyes shut against the shifting light leaking in through the blinds. It's Jean who gets up first, though, and she shakes Wanda fully awake almost immediately--it didn't take her long to learn that if she wants the best of breakfast, she needs to be in the kitchen before the boys. Pietro wakes too, attuned to his sister, and soon the three of them are wandering into the kitchen. 

There's a split second of sleepy incomprehension, but the twins come back to themselves almost simultaneously. 

"Papa!" Wanda shrieks and runs across the kitchen towards him, somehow managing to dive into his embrace before Pietro can get there.

"Papa!" Pietro echoes, joining the hug. "You came!"

"Of course I came," Erik says, holding them tightly. "I'll always come back for you."

They slip excitedly into German that Charles can't follow without listening in psychically. After all the progress that he and Erik have made, he's not about to ruin it by violating Erik's trust. No matter how much he wants to.

"Come, let's eat," Erik says to the twins, switching back to English and gesturing towards the table. 

"I made the fruit salad!" Ororo says proudly as Erik ushers Wanda and Pietro to chairs. "The Professor helped."

Wanda and Pietro sit on either side of Erik, huddled close to his side. Jean slowly takes the chair next to Wanda. She's been glaring at Erik the whole time. Charles thinks the expression is not unlike the one he's worn himself these past few weeks.

"You can't take them away again!" she says once Erik deigns to look down at her. "You can't take Wanda and Pietro away, they should stay at the school with us!"

Wanda looks quickly back and forth between her father and Jean, and then reaches out to take Jean's hand. Alex and Armando pause in their eating to look at Erik curiously. Charles knows, of course, that Erik has already reached a decision on whether the children can stay, regardless of his hesitance to stay himself, but he can't look away either. Erik always did love a little theatricality.

"Hm," Erik says. "And why should I do that?"

"Because!" Jean says. "Because the school is the best place--we learn about how to use our powers and about science and about history and we have English where we can read books and we get to run around and learn all about our minds and play with the other kids and learn all about what we can do and how to work together and stuff. And the Professor and Darwin and Alex and Hank are really good teachers! And Wanda said there are no other kids where she lives and the Professor says...the Professor says that being around other mutant kids...." She deflates a little and looks beseechingly at Charles.

"That being around other mutant children reminds us all that we're not alone," Charles says. "Not anymore."

"Yes!" Jean says brightly. "That!" But Erik's not looking at her any longer. He's looking at Charles again.

 _You keep saying that,_ Erik projects, and the shock of Erik's voice in his head is enough to make Charles jolt forward in his chair. _You don't want them to be alone. You don't want any of us to be alone._

 _I don't,_ Charles replies cautiously, careful not to give into temptation and stray further into Erik's mind. _Because we're not. There are so many of us, Erik, and I want to find them all and let them know they don't have to be alone anymore. Neither do you._

Erik holds his gaze and retreats back into his own head. Mostly. There's a lingering presence, just a hint of warmth. Of affection. Just a sliver of the open channel that used to exist between them.

It's a start.

"Also," Jean continues, "Wanda is my best friend and I want her to stay here."

"Well," Erik says, still not looking away. "You're in luck. Wanda and Pietro are going to stay here and go to school."

Pietro drops his fork. Wanda drops Jean's hand to grab Erik's arm.

"Really?" she asks. Erik finally breaks his eye contact with Charles and looks down at her.

"Really," he tells her. Wanda hugs him around the middle and proceeds to babble in rapid-fire German. Pietro seems more hesitant.

"What about you?" he asks, tugging on Erik's sleeve.

"I'm still figuring that out," Erik says. "I might stay here a while."

He looks up at Charles again. Charles swallows.

"Might you?" he asks.

"I might," Erik agrees. The shred of affection between them intensifies for just a moment, a pulse of feelings that Charles can't quite decipher. He looks away, back down at his plate, to hide his smile. The twins and Jean and Ororo are all talking excitedly at once. In the living room, Charles can feel the boys finally collecting themselves and preparing to troop towards the kitchen. Hank is in the shower, Sean is brushing his teeth, and Erik is sitting in his kitchen, sending Charles his love and agreeing, tentatively, to stay.

"After breakfast," Charles says, clearing his throat and hoping his voice doesn't wobble. "Would you care for a game of chess?"

He looks up and catches Erik's eyes again. The moment seems to stretch onwards and onwards. He thinks, maybe, it's barely more than a second.

"I would," Erik says. It's an admission, almost cautious, but his lips curl into a smile.

"Is that a euphemism?" Alex whispers to Armando. Then, "Holy crap, has it always been an euphemism?"

"Eat your pancakes, Alex," Armando says.

Charles decides to take that advice as well. For the moment, Erik is here and safe and eating breakfast at Charles' table. His children are going to be enrolled in Charles' school. This afternoon, they'll have a game of chess. 

There are things they still need to work out, issues that still haven't been discussed, but they have plenty of time for that. Right now, he's going to enjoy what's right in front of him--his chattering students, a warm meal, and Erik smiling at him from across the table, hopeful, affectionate, and in no rush to be anywhere else.

**Author's Note:**

> Over the months and months I worked on this, I listened to the same four songs with some frequency, and much of the inspiration for the themes of this story are found within them. Most notably the song the title was taken from, but also another song from that same album that also focuses on guiding/teaching children, and two others that sort of summarized Charles and Erik's points of view throughout the story.
> 
> That's all to say, I've uploaded them for your listening pleasure. They're not a mix and there's no fancy artwork or re-labeled tracks or any of those things that people are so insistent about. It's just four songs. But you are welcome to download them, as they're by some of my favorite artists :)
> 
>  
> 
> [1) "Write This Number Down," Dar Williams; 2) "I Am The One Who Will Remember Everything," Dar Williams; 3) "I'll Be Gone," Bess Rogers; 4) "Antebellum," Vienna Teng](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8NaN1e99Ai6MThRYzc3UkZ1Ykk/edit?usp=sharing)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [kids who go to school (the drop the dime remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4178535) by [littledust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/pseuds/littledust)




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